In awe of the moment

The sun has appeared from behind the sullen grey clouds that blocked it from view for the past week. The sky is blue. The air clear. No snow falls. No ice clogs the driveway. Perhaps it's spring at last?

There's something to be said for waking up to clear skies. The sun streams in through my living room windows and I feel alive. A great morning for meditation.

I used to meditate every day. I've slacked off. Let go of that peaceful time in lieu of...

There's the rub. I don't know what I replaced it with. Perhaps nothing other than filling time with inconsequentials.

Alan Watts wrote: “We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”

Zen teaches that meditation is in all things. Do everything with the intent of being in the moment. When brushing your teeth, do nothing but brush your teeth. Experience the sensations, the feelings, the activities as if it is all. Be of the moment.

I've never attained the feeling of zen and the art of brushing my teeth, though I have had moments when I've been so completely in awe of the moment, my breath was literally taken away. I have stood on a mountain top and witnessed the beauty of the sun cascading over the ridges beyond as mist drifted slowlythrough the valleys below. I've experienced the sun setting behind mountains to the west, bruising the sky purple and pink, and waves crashing on a beach exploding the air into crystalized drops that glisten like rainbows in the air and stood amongst a field of wildflowers strewn with colour dancing in the sunlight.

Finding that awe in everyday moments is often challenging as I rush mindlessly through cleaning the kitchen or racing to the grocery store for that forgotten litre of milk. I can be hard pressed to find awe in 700 homeless people crowding onto the second floor of the Drop-In Centre waiting for one moment to pass into the next.

And yet, in those moments when life is exposed in all its beauty and despair, awe exists as long as I stand freely in the moment without trying to adjust the 'picture' by looking for some way to make it different than what it is in the moment.

Perhaps the secret is to dance my way through every moment. As Alan Watts says, in the dance, it is not about reaching the end, it is about the journey.

My mind skitters through the thooughts, looking for clarity. As with the dance, however, it is not the clarity that is important but letting the thoughts flow, to take shape on their own, to create their own moment without forcing them through the sieve of time or contorting them to fit the space available.

Thinking is my Zen of living. Letting my thoughts flow freely takes me to that place where my mind is still as I submerge myself into the moment. When I meditate, it is not that my thinking stops. It is that I stop directing my thinking. I let the images flow through me. I do not hold onto them. I do not attempt to add meaning to their appearance. The thoughts simply are.

As they appear, as I search for meaning in their existence, I lose sight of the moment.

I take a breath.

In this moment, as I feel my body sitting here at my desk, my fingers flying freely across the keyboard, I let the sensations I am experiencing enter my consciousness. My feet feel the chill of the air on my bare ankles. My stomach is yearning for something more sustaining than a cup of coffee. The fridge chirps like a bird, music plays gently in the background. There is nothing to fix, except to be in the moment.

Like a child skipping from stone to stone, leaping across the burbling waters of a creek, my mind quickly races forward thinking about what I need to do to get ready for dinner tonight. My mother and sister, and friends are coming at 5. We'll be ten and I have lots to do.

The moment evaporates as my mind races ahead preparing for my day.

I smile. That's the beauty of life. In the moment time has no import. In my life, time has great meaning as I continually attempt to cram more import than one moment can handle.

For today, I will move gracefully through each moment. Doing what is necessary to live each moment without skipping through the events and missing the tiny details that bring meaning to each step of my journey.

While I prepare dinner for my friends and family, I shall meditate on the joy I feel while getting ready for their arrival, and I shall imagine each step I take to prepare the meal is filled with the love I feel for them. As I prepare the ham, mash the potatoes, bake the cake, I shall imagine each of my actions is filled with love, so that when they bite into each morsel, love will explode upon their palate and they will be filled with awe -- not for the food, though that's important! -- but rather the awe of being surrounded by family and friends, being part of the circle of love that surrounds each and every one of us.

May you have an awe-inspired day surrounded by love.

Happy Easter.